Eagles To Share Home With New Development In Controversial Plan

A Federal Agency's ''take'' Permit Will Let A St. Cloud Man Develop Land Near Lake Tohopekaliga.

October 16, 1996|By Katherine Bouma of The Sentinel Staff

KISSIMMEE — Federal officials are allowing a St. Cloud developer to build houses right beside a family of bald eagles in an unprecedented move that worries state scientists.

''Nobody here wants to see this guy go bankrupt, but by the same token nobody wants to see anything happen that sets the stage for the ultimate downfall of bald eagles in Florida,'' said Brian Millsap of the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission. ''It's like walking on glass.''

State officials initially have opposed the federal permit allowing the developer to ''take'' the national bird. It would be the first permit of its kind in the United States, said Rick Gooch of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

''A lot of people have a philosophical problem with having a 'taking' permit - a license to kill, if you will - on an endangered species,'' said Rick Gooch of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In Osceola, the eagles at risk in the small development off Neptune Road near Lake Tohopekaliga probably won't die under the Fish and Wildlife plan, which allows a 30-home development 50 feet from their tree, said Gooch, a regional permit coordinator for Fish and Wildlife.

''At worst, what we see happening is that the birds will abandon the nest tree and re-establish somewhere else,'' he said.

It's extremely unlikely that the couple would abandon eggs or young eaglets since construction won't be allowed near the nest during the mating season, Gooch said.

But if the project does result in the death of some eagles, the ''taking permit'' means the builder will not be liable under the Endangered Species Act.

Environmentalists have sent out nationwide action alerts, saying they're worried this could be the beginning of the end of the Act.

Florida Game and Fish has almost identical rules to the federal law, but that doesn't mean that the federal permit will automatically exempt the developer from the state law. Although the agency never has faced the issue before, Game and Fish's Millsap said its lawyers believe Game and Fish also must issue a permit before the project can move ahead, Millsap said. So far, it's not clear Game and Fish will do so, he said.

''I guess most people are opposed to this because it would set a precedent,'' said Al Malatesta, a member of the Kissimmee Valley Audubon Society, which uses the bald eagle as its club symbol. ''In other words, they're afraid other developers will say, 'You gave him an exemption and I want one, too.' ''

Others argue that reasonable compromises could actually be the salvation of the controversial Endangered Species Act, which has been a popular target of landowners' rights advocates.

Everyone benefits if developers like him see they can work within federal environmental laws without going bankrupt, said Nick Gross, Jr., the Osceola County developer involved.

''We're in a very rural area,'' Gross said. ''I believe if people are totally threatened that they're going to lose their property because of an endangered species, and they feel they're in a corner, that could be a very tenuous situation.''

Gross has an incentive to keep the eagles in his development happy and healthy. If they don't abandon their nests in the course of his development, Gross gets back a $25,000 deposit he has given Fish and Wildlife. If they move, he loses.

In most circumstances, the Fish and Wildlife Service visits a site and helps the landowner build a plan that allows him to go forward without harming the endangered animals.

Usually, it can be done, officials said. A recent six-year survey showed that only 18 projects were totally stopped by the Endangered Species Act, Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Vicki Boatwright said.

Gross's development was a tricky case, because it was less than 12 acres. If he had redesigned the project to leave an adequate buffer for the eagles, the project would have been so small that Gross would have lost money, Gooch said.

Gooch was faced with stopping the project or issuing a take permit. So, he said, they did the best they could.

Instead of running a road over the eagle's tree, Gross is building cul-de-sacs at both ends of the project. A tree buffer will surround the eagles, and construction will take place near them only in the summer, when they're not raising their young.

The permit is expected to be issued any day, Fish and Wildlife officials said.

Gross said the eagles didn't build their nest on the property until after his father-son operation already had $70,000 sunk into the project and full permitting approval from the county. ''We're not a big corporation,'' Gross said. ''That represents more than we made the year before.''

He said he doesn't think the solution was so simple that developers will be lining up to follow suit. He had to pay about $8,000 for new engineering plans, add three or four years onto the project, pay $15,000 in mitigation and gamble his $25,000.

''The eagles are a fact of life in this county,'' Gross said. ''I personally think this was the right thing to do in this situation, and it will encourage people to work with U.S. Fish and Wildlife rather than to take matters into their own hands.''